Asclepius, << uh SKLEE pee uhs >>, was the god of healing in Greek mythology. The Romans called him Aesculapius. The Greeks prayed to Asclepius during plagues and in times of illness. His best-known child was Hygeia, the goddess of health. Epidaurus in Greece was the special site of his followers, the Asclepiads, the first physicians. Asclepius’s symbol, a snake entwined around a staff, is often used as a symbol of the medical profession.
Asclepius’s father was the god Apollo, who taught his son the art of health. But Asclepius misused this gift by trying to revive a dead man. Zeus, ruler of the gods, therefore killed him with a thunderbolt and sent him to Hades, god of the underworld.
